REWEAVING THE URBAN CARPET: STRATEGIES FOR THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

Alan Berger

In the run up to IABR–2014–URBAN BY NATURE– and in association with the IABR–Project Atelier BrabantStad the IABR invited Alan Berger (Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the MIT Centre for Advanced Urbanism) to lecture on the profound innovations he thinks are necessary in the field of urban planning and design if we want to foster sustainable development.

What new perspective is needed to truly understand the workings of our urban environments? How can we go beyond definitions such as city and landscape, and develop a new idiom and better performing tools for action? And what does this mean for urban planners and architects?

NO NEW FRONTIER LEFTOver time we have witnessed a recurring pattern of development-driven succession in urban land use. Usage changed following the fluctuations in land value. This constant urban development has resulted in mosaics of land uses, or in urban carpets that cover entire deltas. Now this on-going cycle seems to be losing momentum: there is simply not much natural area left to reclaim except for those regions that are unsuited both for food production and urban development. There is no ‘new frontier’ left. If cities need to provide decent living conditions to all future inhabitants, increasing food production and solving pressing environmental problems will have to be priorities. There is only one way to do this: by repairing and reweaving the urban carpet itself. Through a ‘reading and reweaving’ of the urban carpets, IABR–2014 proposes new strategies that allow us to plan, design and govern these complex urban systems in a more sustainable way.

IABR–LECTURE is organized by the IABR in collaboration with the Technical University Eindhoven and in association with the IABR–Project Atelier BrabantStad, a collaboration of the IABR and the Province of Noord-Brabant, the municipalities of Den Bosch, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Breda and Helmond and the water boards of Noord-Brabant.

The offices Architecture Workroom Brussels, Floris Alkemade Architect and LOLA Landscape Architects have been commissioned to carry out the research and design. They explore the potentials that lay hidden in Brabant’s urban tapestry and seek to identify the spatial and governance configurations that will be most conducive to the sustainable development of BrabantStad.